Chilly, Wintertime face-munching and spinal severing awaits us on the the 19th of February 2010, according to trade mag MCV. Which, while pleasingly soon, does mean we’ve got one more game to add to the now frighteningly busy Feb/March period. February: it’s the new Christmas! Oh, and there’ll be three different editions of AvP to choose from – sane people will want Standard, people who like metal DVD cases and extra multiplayer maps will want Survivor, and people who like toy facehuggers and and badges will want the no-doubt crazy-priced Hunter edition. I quite like toyfacehuggers, but badges do nothing for me. Y’know – special editions don’t seem quite so special now every game under the sun does one.

February is looking very busy indeed. I feel that this, Napoleon: Total War and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 will be occupying too much of my time.
Also, a toy facehugger does sound like fun, but extra maps for ‘Survivor’ edition players sounds like a bad idea.

Mostly just the reviews I’ve watched/read indicate a certain ‘plays itself’ feel. I’m not sure how to describe it, but it just feels like one of those games where everything will be a ‘button ‘x’ kills the enemy from behind’ type of game. While AvP did have that, it was more that you’d have to jump forward, and aim yourself into position to tail-strike the enemy head.

One comment I saw said the guy would run into someone and do a 180 while pressing a button to one-shot them everytime.

Basically I feel there will be less panic because death will be so constant and cartoony that it won’t be possible to actually feel fear.

Paid multiplayer map packs are the worst thing to happen to FPS games ever =/. Why anyone thinks it’s OK to segment a player base like that is beyond me. DLC, costumes, weapons, hell even character classes if you HAVE to do something (not that I’m advocating it). But for chrissakes at least let everyone playing your game play together.

Yeah, when I heard that my brother bought mappacks for COD on XBOX360 I was afraid the disease would somehow spread to PC. But, that’s impossible of course. PC players will just make their own maps. Buying maps is retarded.

When the first map-pack for Halo 3 came out, in a fit of youthful enthusiasm and naivety, I bought it. It was okay, but nothing amazing, and there were issues with match-making because the number of people who had it was so much smaller than the normal multiplayer playerbase.

What about those of us that want a good game? Rebellion haven’t exactly been knocking it out of the park recently, and from what I’ve been told this wonderful NEXT GENERATION ASURA ENGINE of theirs isn’t very next generation at all. Every preview I’ve found points out a general shittiness.

BTW guys “we” have banned it here in Australia. Rebellion are (quite rightly) refusing to tone down the violence to be suitable for under 15 year olds so (for those who haven’t been following (it’s kinda a big deal to us anyway) we don’t have an R18+ classification for games) it’s been Refused Classification.

Interesting. The cumulative effect of a year’s worth of buying digitally downloaded games is that, more and more, I actively pursue physical copies. Too many patching problems, mod incompatibilities, installation oddities, and the ever present threat of having an account lost or damaged due to hacking have given me a newfound respect for DVD’s. Of course, places like GOG represent the ideal middle ground, as I can create a fully functional disc back up AND can always redownload the game should anything happen to said disc.

It’s funny you mention that Vinraith, because I had a recent experience that made me think the opposite.
I was installing GTA IV and didn’t find the manual with the CD-key printed on it. I desperately searched everywhere and simply couldn’t find it. This wouldn’t have happened with a digital purchase as they always come either without any CD-key verification or have the key neatly stored within rangeo f a few mouse clicks.

Oh, end of the story: I found the GTA manual in my Witcher box. Dunno how it ended up there.